1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a recombinantly modified microorganisms to produce 1,4-BDO with high efficiency.
2. Description of the Related Art
1,4-Butanediol (1,4-BDO) is a polymer intermediate and industrial solvent with a global market of about 3 billion lb/year. 1,4-BDO is currently produced from petrochemical precursors, primarily acetylene, maleic anhydride, and propylene oxide.
1,4-BDO is used in various chemicals, i.e., polymers, solvents and fine chemical intermediates for the production of high performance polymers, solvents and fine chemicals, in the chemical industry. Since most chemicals with four carbons are currently derived and synthesized from 1,4-BDO or maleic anhydride, production costs are increasing as oil price increases, and thus development of a method supplementing and alternating the chemical production method is necessary. Therefore, a biological method using microorganisms is being suggested as an alternative to the chemical production method.
However, microorganisms do not produce only the desired metabolites, and when a particular metabolite is excessively produced, the growth of the microorganisms may be suppressed, or the microorganisms may stop producing the desired metabolite or may produce undesired products only. In order to overcome such a limitation, many studies have been carried out to develop microorganisms capable of specifically producing desired metabolites. However, designing modified microorganisms by modifying many metabolic pathways of the modified microorganisms to fit all possible number of cases would take too much time and effort.
In an embodiment of the present invention, a metabolic network model for analyzing metabolic characteristics of a microorganism is used to produce 1,4-BDO without the above-described limitations. Also, an increase in 1,4-BDO productivity is confirmed through culturing in actual microorganisms based on the results obtained from the network model.
Therefore, a method of modifying microorganisms to result in efficient 1,4-BDO productivity was confirmed, and thus limitations of the conventional methods of designing microorganisms have been overcome.